Mr N L Fonseca Carretas v Easyshipping Ltd — 2026

The Claimant, an HGV driver, brought complaints for a redundancy payment, holiday pay, and unpaid wages. At case management hearings on 12 March 2025 and 8 September 2025, the Claimant confirmed that his sole remaining complaint was for unpaid wages, valued by him at £3,889; the redundancy pay and holiday pay complaints were withdrawn and were dismissed upon withdrawal in this judgment.

The Claimant did not attend the final hearing on 12 January 2026. He had written on 11 December 2025 indicating he would be in Portugal for cancer treatment; EJ Sudra treated that email as an application to postpone and refused it on 5 January 2026 because no medical evidence of an appointment on the hearing date had been provided. The Tribunal Clerk telephoned the Claimant at the start of the hearing without answer. Having regard to Rule 47 of the Employment Tribunal Procedure Rules 2024, that this was the third listing, that the documentary evidence relied upon by the Claimant was before the Tribunal, and that it was not in the interests of justice to postpone again, the Employment Judge proceeded in the Claimant's absence.

On the unauthorised deductions complaint, the Tribunal heard evidence from two of the Respondent's witnesses about how the Claimant's reported hours (sent via WhatsApp and reconciled against vehicle tracking records and payment records) had been checked. Applying s.13 and s.27 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and the meaning of 'properly payable' in New Century Cleaning Co Ltd v Church [2000] IRLR 27, the Employment Judge concluded that the Claimant had not provided evidence that any sums properly payable had been unpaid. The unlawful deductions complaint was therefore dismissed.